The Durian Disappearance Case
I stumbled out of the lodging on unsteady feet and scanned my surroundings. I'd decided to search every possible hiding place, even poking through the bushes scattered around the yard on the off chance something was there. It seemed unlikely anyone would stash it in a place like this, but they did say "never say never" — so I was being thorough.
"What are you doing?"
A voice from behind. It was Kang In-hyeok.
"Uh..."
The moment I saw him, I tried to keep a poker face. But I was so tense that the wrong words came out.
"I'm looking at bugs."
Silence stretched between us.
"...Right."
He didn't look convinced in the slightest, but Kang In-hyeok nodded as if he'd accepted it anyway.
"You're looking at bugs?"
"Yes."
His voice turned skeptical.
"You're on a mission, aren't you?"
"No."
"Then what are you doing out here?"
"What about you, hyung?"
"I just came out for a walk."
By this point I was starting to wonder what missions the other members had been given. But I decided to go my own way for now.
"Is finding something your mission?"
"No."
"Then what, are you looking for something that went missing?"
I turned around and looked at Kang In-hyeok. Don't tell me he's the one who hid it?
I stared at him so hard I could have bored a hole through his face. Kang In-hyeok gave me a meaningful little smile.
"The durian? You hid it, didn't you, hyung?"
"Why would I hide a durian."
"Hyung, is the durian your mission?"
Kang In-hyeok shook his head, then shuffled off at a suspiciously leisurely pace.
What's with that hyung.
Something felt off, but I still didn't have any real evidence. Just a faint suspicion from his expression and the way he talked.
So I have to start by figuring out who the culprit is in the Durian Disappearance Case...
At this rate, wasn't this just a sequel to last time's ja-con? The thought crossed my mind as I let out a sigh and went back to poking around, hunting for the durian.
It wasn't in the lodging, and it wasn't in the yard. Where on earth had they hidden it?
Don't tell me they already ate the whole thing and it's sitting in someone's stomach.
That would be the worst possible outcome. But this mission didn't feel like the kind that would wrap up that anticlimactically.
My mission was to get Han I-jae to eat the durian. Which meant there was a good chance someone else had been given the mission of keeping him from eating it.
That would definitely be more entertaining.
Someone attacking, someone defending. A setup where their goals collided and clashed — that would be fun to watch. But hadn't this gotten a little too hardcore? Getting Han I-jae to eat durian was already difficult enough. Now I had to find the missing durian before I could even feed it to him?
"...Whatever. Just take it easy. Like a panda."
I muttered that to myself, and kept searching for the durian anyway.
It's not outside.
No matter how thoroughly I searched, it wasn't anywhere in the yard. That left only one explanation: it had to be inside.
An empty room caught my eye at just the right moment. Jeong Hui-min and Kang In-hyeok's shared room. Both of them seemed to be out.
A glance toward the living room told me they were doing a puzzle together. Why are they suddenly putting together a puzzle? I wondered if that was a mission too, but decided not to get involved.
Kang In-hyeok had seemed suspicious earlier. Maybe he'd hidden it in his own room. I slipped inside and opened the wardrobe first.
Nothing, of course. My eyes drifted to the suitcase next.
In here?
I opened it carefully. Nope. Nothing in the bag either.
I was just about to bend down and check under the bed when—
"...What are you doing?"
Hyeon Si-woo, passing by the door at that exact moment, had apparently spotted me through the gap.
"It's nothing."
I had no choice but to leave the room. It's not here either.
Not in Kang In-hyeok's room. So where was it, then?
They said the darkest place was under the lamp. What if it was sitting somewhere ridiculously obvious and I just couldn't find it?
I trudged out to the living room empty-handed, and the sound of a guitar drifted over.
"Hmm, hmm, hmm."
Lee Hae-won sat by the window, playing guitar. Next to him, Won Ji-an was filming him singing.
"What are you two doing?"
"Writing an original song."
"Oh, what is it? Let me hear."
The words were barely out of my mouth before Lee Hae-won launched into a deliberately theatrical, over-the-top performance, throwing himself into the guitar with a look of mock rapture. It was a song about the members coming on their first trip together. True to the setting that he had a gift for composition, even a melody thrown together on the spot sounded pretty good.
"That's actually nice."
Won Ji-an clapped beside him. Encouraged by the reaction, Lee Hae-won played even more passionately.
Then music started playing from somewhere else. A cheerful children's song, of all things.
Fancy tomato~
Everyone looked bewildered at the bizarre children's song that had suddenly started playing.
"Hey! I-jae hyung's doing his mission!"
Han I-jae was in his room, blasting a children's song and dancing to it. He didn't last long before he was found out. Na Jae-hyun hogtied him on the spot, and the dancing was sealed away along with him.
"Your mission is dancing to a children's song?"
Han I-jae's face had turned as red as the tomato in the lyrics.
They're making them do all kinds of things.
I had no idea what kind of missions the production team had cooked up, but I was grateful mine at least wasn't that.
"Did you see that? I-jae hyung dancing to Fancy Tomato."
"Come on, at least put some sunglasses on him. Don't you feel bad for I-jae hyung?"
The members, who had a supernatural nose for anything entertaining, swarmed in and devoted themselves to roasting Han I-jae.
Even the great Han I-jae gets reduced to a joke in front of a game like this...
Han I-jae, who seemed to have read that look in my eyes, announced that he wanted to be alone, grabbed the phone still playing the children's song, and bolted out of the room.
So now I knew what Han I-jae's mission was. But the thing occupying most of my mind right now was still the missing durian.
Where did they hide it, seriously.
Evening crept up on us with the durian still nowhere to be found.
We split into a cooking team and a cleanup team, half and half. For the record, I was not a good cook, so I was automatically assigned to cleanup.
The cooking team members started prepping dinner in the kitchen.
"I'm making doenjang stew."
"Oh."
"You can't have meat without doenjang stew."
"Let's go."
While that conversation was going on, I spotted Han I-jae pulling ingredients out of the fridge.
"Hyung. What are you doing?"
"I'm making kongguksu."
Hyeon Si-woo, who'd been drinking water in the kitchen, looked puzzled.
"Kongguksu?"
"Won-woo said he'd never tried soybean noodle soup, so I wanted to make it for him."
He hadn't forgotten what I'd said in the car. Han I-jae had gone and bought the ingredients at the supermarket with his own pocket money.
That's actually kind of touching.
I wanted to tell him he didn't have to go that far, but saying that to someone who was offering to cook for you felt wrong, so I just watched quietly.
"Hyung."
"Yeah."
"Have you ever made kongguksu before?"
"No?"
...What?
"I've only had it once at a restaurant a long time ago."
"Uh."
Something about that didn't sit right, but he was already deep in cooking mode, so I swallowed whatever I was going to say.
"Don't worry. Kongguksu is super easy to make. I looked it up earlier — you just blend everything in a mixer and you're done."
Is that so. I didn't really know, but since he put it that way, I decided to take his word for it.
"Your mission isn't something like 'make kongguksu,' is it?"
Han I-jae, who'd been slicing cucumber on the cutting board, set the kitchen knife down with a clack.
"I told you I was going to make it for you back in the car, you idiot. We got the missions after we arrived at the lodging."
"I was just kidding. Don't take it so literally."
"Yeah, yeah."
Han I-jae went back to slicing cucumber, answering in a tone that said he was barely listening.
Meanwhile, Kwon Hak-jin had opened the fridge and was rummaging around inside, apparently unable to find what he wanted.
"Why isn't it here?"
"What are you looking for?"
"The zucchini. I bought it to put in the doenjang stew and prepped it and left it in here."
"Look carefully."
Han I-jae said it offhandedly, still slicing away at the cutting board.
Then Kwon Hak-jin found something in one of the compartments and glanced back at us.
"Hey."
He pulled out something long and held it up.
"Isn't this a cucumber?"
Han I-jae, who had been silently slicing away, slowly turned around.
All three of us sensed that something had gone very wrong, and froze at the same time.
"...What?"
"Huh?"
"Uh?"
In other words: the thing Han I-jae had been slicing this whole time, fully convinced it was a cucumber, was not a cucumber at all. It was zucchini.
"Ah..."
"Uh, well..."
I'd had a bad feeling about this.
"I-jae?"
That kind Kwon Hak-jin making a face like that was a first. He was smiling on the surface, but it was the face of a man holding something back. I had never in my life found a person smiling while holding a cucumber so terrifying.
"What are you doing chopping up the zucchini thinking it's a cucumber."
Kwon Hak-jin's voice was as gentle as always, but there was a strange undercurrent of fury in it.
"I'm sorry, hyung."
The zucchini that was supposed to go into the doenjang stew had, thanks to Han I-jae's mistake, been reduced to a finely minced pile on the cutting board. He'd sliced it thinking it would be a cucumber garnish for the kongguksu. There was no going back now.
"How do you mix those two up? You didn't notice anything weird while you were cutting it?"
Han I-jae had nothing to say to Kwon Hak-jin's scolding. He just stared off into the distance.
"I'm sorry. I thought it was a cucumber."
"No, if you actually cut them, cucumber and zucchini are completely different colors."
Kwon Hak-jin held the cucumber in one hand and the zucchini in the other, looking back and forth between them and Han I-jae with an expression of pure disbelief.
Into that solemn atmosphere, Na Jae-hyun arrived in the kitchen humming a tune, completely oblivious — then stopped short when he saw us.
"What's with this vibe."
Once he'd been filled in on the whole story, Na Jae-hyun burst out laughing on the spot.
"You mixed up cucumber and zucchini?"
"......"
"Whoa, that's insane. That's too funny. How do you even mix those up? Wait, I-jae hyung's secretly a variety character."
Kwon Hak-jin picked up the chopped zucchini Han I-jae had prepared and trudged weakly toward the pot.
"Can't be helped. We'll just have to put this in."
Han I-jae, who had been so confidently announcing that he was going to cook for me, had somehow shrunk into a dejected heap.
"It's okay, I-jae. At least it was funny."
Kwon Hak-jin offered a belated consolation, but Han I-jae's mental state seemed thoroughly wrecked. He suddenly stood up and started heading somewhere.
"...Where are you going?"
"To the store. To buy zucchini."
He didn't look like he was joking. If nobody stopped him, he was actually going to go. Na Jae-hyun and I grabbed him at the same time.
Han I-jae's got a surprisingly clumsy side too.
That thought was still in my head when I spotted Kang In-hyeok heading out of the lodging, making his way toward the yard.